Prayer in
the
Public SchoolsThe issue: What
limitations
does the Establishment Clause place on prayer in public
schools?

Introduction

The
question
of school-sponsored
prayer has proven highly controversial. In
the
landmark
case of Engel v Vitale in 1962, the Court
ruled that New York's
practice of beginning school days with a prayer
drafted by school
officials
violated the Establishment Clause. This is
the case, the Court
said,
whether or not students are given the option of
not participating in
the
prayer. Writing for the Court, Justice Black
said the
Establishment Clause was violated when school put
"indirect coercive
pressure upon religious minorities to conform to
the officially
approved religion." Peer pressure being as
strong as it is among
the young, many students who might otherwise
choose not to participate
in prayer will do so for fear of otherwise
being seeing as an
oddball.

Engel dealt
with an officially
approved prayer, not the question of whether
school officials could set
aside time for voluntary silent prayer. That
issue arose in the
1985 case of Wallace
v Jaffree.
Alabama had for some time authorized schools to
dedicate part of the
school day for "a period of silence for
meditation." The
period-of-silence law almost certainly did not
offend the First
Amendment because it did not endorse religious
reflection over other
types of reflection, be they philosophical or
personal. Not
satisfied, it seems, with how students might be
using their period of
silence, Alabama legislators amended the statute
to provide for a
"period of silence for meditation or silent
prayer." The sponsor of the legislation
frankly stated that
the purpose of his amendment was to get more kids
to use their time to
recite prayers. In Wallace,
the Court, voting 5 to 4, held that the amendment
to the Alabama
moment-of-silence law lacked
a secular purpose and struck it
down.

Lee v Weisman
(1992) considered
school prayer in the special context of a
graduation ceremony for a
middle school. The principal of the school
had invited a
clergyman to offer an invocation and benediction
at the ceremony, and
that decision was challenged by Weisman, who
contended that the
practice violated Establishment Clause
precedents. Again voting 5
to 4, with Justice Kennedy providing the key vote,
the Court found the
invocation and benediction to violate the First
Amendment.
Kennedy found an unacceptable degree of coercion,
given the fact that
the ceremony was an important milestone that
students would be
extremely reluctant to avoid because of religious
scruples. The
options of remaining seated during prayers or
leaving right before the
benediction did not seem realistic under the
circumstances.
Justice Scalia, in a passionate dissent, ridiculed
Kennedy's opinion as
a "psycho journey" and wrote that he would not
find a problem with
prayer at graduation ceremonies unless the state
attached a penalty to
non-participation.

In
general,
the Court has demonstrated a willingness to strike
down any
practices that might be likely to be perceived
either as coercive or as
a state endorsement of religion. That trend
continued with the Court's Santa Fe v
Doe decision in 2000, which considered
the policy of a Texas
school district that
allowed students to elect students to speak
briefly over the PA system
before high school football games.
Traditionally, the speeches
were
religious in character--the policy stated that the
speeches should
solemnize
the event and be nonsectarian in nature. The
Court found the
Santa
Fe school policy to be a violation of the
Establishment Clause.
The
Court reasoned that the speeches were at a
school-sponsored event,
using
school facilities, and would be taken by most
observers as a school
endorsement
of the student prayers that were likely to be
delivered. The
election
process ensured, the Court thought, that the
religious messages would
reflect
the religious views of the majority of Students,
who in the case were
generally
Fundamentalist Christians. The three
dissenters argued that the
school
policy was neutral on its face and not a
constitutional
violation.
Nothing in the school policy, the dissenters said,
even required that
the
message be religious in nature.

Is it
a prayer?

The
following verse was
read each day to a Florida kindergarten
class. The school board
said
the purpose of the verse was to calm
kids down and create a sense of
appreciation
for the world. Is the verse a
prayer? How are students
likely
to interpret "you"? Could "you" be
Mother Nature
or a Giant Slug?

We
thank you
for the flowers so sweet;We thank
you for the
food we eat; We thank
you for the
birds that sing;We thank
you for everything.

Happy members of the group that
challenged
New
York's
daily prayer in Engel v Vitale.

Marian Ward, a 17-year-old student,
says a
prayer
beforea Santa Fe High School (Texas)
football game.

Questions

1. Did
the
Framers of the First Amendment intend to prohibit
prayer in public
institutions? What evidence exists that can help
answer that
question?
2. Why worry about voluntary--as opposed to
mandatory--prayer? How much harm is suffered by
those who must
choose to opt out of prayer?
3. Is it constitutional for a teacher to tell
students, in the
absence of any official school policy, "Now, children,
we will have two
minutes for either silent meditation or prayer"?
4. Does standing for a prayer send a message
that the person
standing supports the prayer? Would Lee v Weisman
have been decidedly
differently if the principal expressly stated that
those who might wish
to stand for a prayer could do so?
5. What do you think about Justice Scalia's
characterization of
Justice Kennedy's opinion in Lee v
Weisman as "a psycho-journey"? Is the
Court well-equipped
to draw the sort of psychological conclusions that it
did in that case?

6. How
important is
the history of the policy involved in the Santa Fe
case--especially the
fact that the initial policy specifically referred
to "prayer" before
the
football games?7.
Is it a
violation
of the Establishment Clause for a football coach
at a public university
to lead a voluntary prayer for players before the
game?8.
Is it
permissible
for a group of players, on their own, to gather in
a lockerroom before
the game and pray? 9.
Is it
permissible
for members of the crowd at a football game to
plan to sing hymms and
recite
prayers before a football game? Does it
become a constitutional
violation
if a school official, using the PA system, decides
on his own to join
the
crowd in their hymm-singing and prayer?